The Andean region was home to several important cultures before the Incas. The Tiahuanaco civilization, named after the city that bears the same name, is the most well-known. The civilization’s origins date back thousands of years, but it peaked in power shortly before the Incans invaded it.
Pre-Inca
Centuries before the Inca arrived, the culture built massive, stepped pyramids that were utilized as ceremonial centers. Their ideas were actually so grandiose that they competed with the ancient Egyptians’ creations. Most of their cities were not walled, leading researchers to conclude that Tiahuanaco had more of a religious than a military effect. Situated in Bolivia along the banks of Lake Titicaca, the magnificent city is regarded as one of the most significant archaeological sites in the entire globe.
Although the Incas are believed to have assimilated Tiahuanaco religion into their own civilization, not much is known about the religion’s intricacies. How can we be certain that the Incas adopted the Tiahuanaco religion? The iconography is rather comparable; there are clear parallels between the Inca and Tiahuanaco’s art and symbolism. The Incas were not the only civilization that existed before them.
Before the Incans subjugated them some twenty years before European settlers arrived in the Americas, the Chimu people ruled the northern Peruvian coast for over 500 years.
This depicts the vibrant world that the European settlers would have found themselves in. The Americas’ civilizations were in upheaval, with several powerful empires vying for dominance in various areas.
Naturally, this had a role in the Europeans’ conquest of those regions; it wasn’t so much a matter of superior might or force but rather of manipulating rival empires against one another.
The Chimu constructed Chan Chan, the biggest adobe metropolis in global history, which still stands today. Helaine Silverman and William Isbell describe the empire’s pantheon as consisting of four principal gods: the Staff God, the Chimu Goddess, the Moon Animal, and what is known as the “Plumed Headdress Deity.”
In Chimu art, the Staff God is the most well-liked, and the Chimu Goddess is the least prevalent. According to legend, the Staff God holds a staff in each hand and is constantly looking forward. This god was taken from the Moche, an earlier civilization in the area.
One of the most graphic mythologies in world history is that of the Moche, featuring extreme violence, murder, and what can only be described as gratuitous sex. The Huaca del Sol and the Huaca de la Luna are two of the world’s finest archaeological marvels, left behind by the roughly 700-year-old society.
These enormous pyramidal constructions took several centuries to complete. Built on top of the previous level, which had been constructed by the previous great ruler of the empire, each step in the pyramid symbolized a great monarch. Rather than uniting the reigns, each stratum corresponds to a distinct era within the empire.
With over 130 million bricks used in its construction, the Huaca del Sol is the biggest adobe edifice in American history and remains mostly unexcavated to this day. The public is welcome to take tours of the Huaca de la Luna’s layers, which have been mostly excavated. Peering down into the room of the old emperors, you see grotesque faces still pigmented in crimson and black. In many ways, however, the Huaca del Sol remains a mystery to modern man. The building process commenced around the year of Christ’s birth and lasted for six centuries.
This empire was established in the middle of a desert, just like the Chimu after them: When you consider the wonder of Las Vegas, which was constructed in an area that should have been inhospitable 2,000 years ago, you begin to see the importance of these locations.
The Moche people’s primary spiritual representations included acts of human sacrifice and wartime nudity. According to Professor Steve Bourget, there are nine major categories of sex acts used in religious iconography, ranging from sodomy to masturbation and fellatio, as well as copulations between animals, women, and sacrificial victims, as well as between anthropomorphic genitals and animals. All of these categories would be considered highly taboo in modern cultures.
Additionally, there was a close connection between sex and death. Undoubtedly, not for the weak of heart. Incorporating the most fundamental and intense aspects of human experience, the Moche people’s spiritual life was “part of a complete symbolic project.”
The two most popular religious representations are an anthropomorphic iguana and the fanged deity, who is occasionally depicted engaging in sexual practices with women. The fanged god has an extremely wrinkled face and a snake belt with the face of a fox.
Referred to as “the decapitator,” one of the other most significant Moche gods is depicted on tiles found throughout the ceremonial center. He is represented as a bird creature when connected to the air, a sea monster when connected to the water, and a spider when connected to the earth, indicating the central role that human sacrifice played in Moche culture. The aforementioned Chavin culture is thought to have given rise to the Moche civilization.
The Wari people, who lived in the Andes mountains and the altiplanos around them, were probably the Inca’s greatest adversaries. They predated the Inca in the mountainous region in the same way that the Chimu predated the Inca by the ocean (part of which the Wari conquered before the Incans moved in), and Tiahuanaco predated the Inca in the south. Located in the center of the Wari people’s territory was the Incan capital, Cusco, which is now among the biggest towns in contemporary Peru.
The desire to propagate the Wari religious beliefs—not to eradicate other people’s beliefs, but to emphasize the significance of their religion in other people’s lives and to acquire religious patronage—is thought to have played a major role in their expansion from their original areas into the rest of the Andes. It’s unclear if the Wari converted people to their faith, mixed their religion with other people’s, or engaged in some other form of evangelism.
Being at the heart of the future Incan empire, Wari civilization was so completely destroyed by the Incans that very little is known about them. Pikillacta, the site of the Wari empire’s purported center, is located a short distance from Cusco. However, we are aware that lavish feasts and celebrations were held in observance of the Wari faith.
Incas
After the Europeans conquered South America, the Incas held the greatest political and military sway over the region and subjugated these earlier cultures. The Incans had not reached their zenith in terms of power; rather, they were still expanding their empire. The Incans might have continued for hundreds more years and ruled over far larger areas of land if the Spanish had never come.
The arrival of the Europeans ultimately ended the Incan empire and culture before they could reach their full potential, in contrast to the empires the Incans conquered, which had already reached their peak and were beginning to collapse. In reality, according to some academics, the Incans had only started to expand approximately a century before they perished, which is extremely early in the history of any major world empire. They achieved this by building roadways. The Inca Roads were superior to the Roman Roads.
The Incas themselves have a myth for their beginning; they are supposed to have been the children of the sun who suddenly emerged to transform the region; in reality, however, they were a small minority living in the mountains who gained power by identifying with myths and deities. Father Bernabe Cobo, a Catholic scholar who lived among the Inca at the start of the 17th century, is largely responsible for much of what we know about Incan mythology. Cobo gave a detailed account of Inca history, political systems, spirituality, law, and economy based on what the Inca told him.
According to Cobo, the Incas had a deep reverence for all living things and integrated their adoration of natural objects into their daily lives. The Incas welcomed the new gods of their subjects and even brought representations of these new gods to their capital city of Cusco to incorporate them into their religious beliefs.
When they conquered a new people, they would ask them to give up any aspects of their religion that went against the Inca religion. If necessary, the Incas would also employ these gods against their citizens; during uprisings, they would bring the gods out of their shrines and beat or lash the idols until the uprising was put down. The principal deity, known as Viracocha, was restricted to Incan aristocracy worship.
At the time of its fall, the Incan empire consisted of a small elite class and a vast swath of vassal kingdoms, rather than a large populous as, instance, the Roman Empire did. The number of people who identified as Incas was actually quite small, and tens of millions of people would continue to use their native language. At its height, the Inca civilization numbered only between 15,000 and 40,000, yet it ruled over an astounding population—some estimates put it at 30 million people.
Thus, the Incan mythology mirrored this cultural reality: the people’s worship differed from the elite’s, to the extent that the most revered god was thought to be inaccessible to non-Incas.
As the god of thunder, the sun, and the creator of the world, Viracocha held the greatest place in the Incan spiritual hierarchy. It was thought that the Incas were endowed with such enormous power that it rendered them impervious to uprisings or other dangers to their way of life.
Cobo refers to them as “tyrants,” which is a fairly accurate description of what they actually were; they deliberately exploited religion to control the populace, even if many of them had a genuine belief that there were gods and continued to worship them. Though they were not atheists, they believed they could utilize the gods whenever they pleased because they were so near to them.
The people in the surrounding area incorporated their mythology into their conception of reality, crafting tales concerning the genesis of hundreds of distinct items or occurrences. The Incan priests, who lived in the capital city and traveled to the vassal nations, used this. They would take advantage of the public’s propensity for myth-making to further instill the idea of Incan supremacy in their minds.
As a result, thousands of stories emerged explaining the part that the Incan people and their gods played in the creation of various flowers, animals, and landscape features. The Inca people were so closely linked to their gods in this way that they practically became gods in their own right.
Consequently, the origin myth of the Inca people was deemed to be of utmost significance, superseding the origin myths of the surrounding regions. Mama Occlo was the daughter of the moon, and Manco Capac was the son of the sun. The sun gave them the order to search for a location to establish an empire together, bringing a special rod that would allow them to know when they had arrived. They sank the rod into the ground at the Cusco spot when the rod eventually notified them. Remarkably, mythological retellings attribute the birth of Manco Capac and Mama Occlo from the depths of Lake Titicaca, the epicenter of the ancient great civilization at Tiahuanaco.
The Incan emperor Pachacuti is credited with pioneering the use and modification of local mythology. He blended the historical narrative of his little tribe with the mythologies of the people he subjugated and the Incas themselves. Some people think the redesign was done with political motive and was fairly significant. In an effort to strengthen his political connections with significant groups, he also granted Inca-like status to strategically located settlements in the region.
In order for the long-standing sacred qualities of the locations to be connected with the Inca throughout generations, Pachacuti also made sure that the sacred sites of surrounding powers were incorporated into the cycle of Incan rituals.
The Incas practiced ancestor worship as well. The family’s revered recollections were mummified rather than merely hidden in a tomb. On anniversaries and other special events, the mummies were frequently brought back into the house for years to come. In this sense, the Incas continued to inspire adoration and material mythology long after they passed away.
This part of the world is a source of many great sources of worship, and also a source of the extremes to which worship can be extended.
Take the Nazca people, who inhabited the deserts close to the Atlantic Ocean long before the Incas did. The Nazca Lines, a series of magnificent images etched into the desert that are only visible by flight, are something that tourists travel from all over the world to see. Apart from the odd straight lines that travel everywhere, these designs are so large that you might walk over top of them on the ground and never know it. They feature hummingbirds, orcas, big condors, herons, monkeys, spiders, pelicans, lizards, sharks, and other creatures. The designs are quite accurate.
Many claim the lines must have been drawn by aliens as landing pads for symbols since it defies common belief that a society could produce something so bizarre. That, of course, is nonsense. The lines were visible from far-off hilltops during religious ceremonies; some of the designs covered several hundred square miles and were as wide as nearly 900 feet. The project was enormous and stands as the world’s largest area ever devoted to religious iconography.
Conclusion
The details of ceremonies connected to such magnificent achievements have vanished from the world permanently due to the paucity of documentation from the cultures in this area and the centuries-long usage of religion and history as partly fiction (by invading empires). Even after 1500 years, the symbols’ impression on the desert serves as a reminder of the depth of the region’s mythology and the extent of its people’s devotion.
References:
Bourget, S. (2006). Sex, Death, and Sacrifice in Moche Religion and Visual Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Cobo, B. (1990). Inca Religion and Customs. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Covey, R. A. (2006). How the Incas Built their Heartland: State Formation and the Innovation of Imperial Strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Detroit: University of Michigan Press.
Klein, H. S. (2011). A Concise History of Bolivia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McEwan, G. F. (2006). The Incas: New Perspectives [Ebook]. ABC-CLIO.
Niles, S. A. (1999). The Shape of Inca History: Narrative and Architecture in an Andean Empire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Silverman, H., & Isbell, W. (2008). Handbook of South American Archeology. New York: Springer.
Urton, G. (1999). Inca Myths. Austin: University of Texas Press.
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